Friday, May 6, 2011

Traffic deaths are at an all-time low—our timeline shows how they got there.

For drivers, passengers, cyclists, and pedestrians, 2009 was a very good year: Motor-vehicle-related fatalities fell to an all-time low in America, with only 1.13 deaths per 100 million vehicle miles traveled (VMT). In total, deaths fell to 33,808, the lowest number since the Department of Transportation started recording the data in 1950. Crash rates fell to their lowest number (185 crashes per 100 million VMT), and injury rates also dropped, from a high of 169 per 100 million VMT in 1988 (the first year on record) to 74 per 100 million VMT in 2009, again the lowest on record.